Over the years, as copying machines have been more widely used to produce multiple sets of copies of multiple page documents, sorting machines have been devised to accommodate the copy sheets and sort them into collated sets as they leave the copy machine.
Efforts have been made to accommodate larger numbers of sets and to reduce the space occupied by the sorter, by shifting trays to facilitate the distribution of the sheets, as shown and described, for example in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,774,902, 3,788,640 and 4,055,339.
Some the prior devices while adapting the sorter to receive a large number of sets or a large number of sheets per set have been adapted by a sheet transport to transfer sheets from the copying machine to a given tray or bin location, at which the sheet is deflected into the bin. As disclosed in my U.S. patent application Ser. No. 936,724, filed Aug. 25, 1978, space can also be effectively saved by nesting the sheet deflectors and extending their length.
Nevertheless, there has remained a need in the industry for a small, simple and compact sorter which can be applied to copiers, as original equipment, or as a later attachment, to receive copy sheets from the outlet of the copy machine and sort the sheets into a number of collated sets, without occupying a large space for the sorting apparatus. Such a compact sorter is the subject of my pending application Ser. No. 098,191, filed Nov. 27, 1979, for Compact Sorter, now U.S. Pat. No. 4,235,435. Another example of such a compact sorter is that made by Gradco-Dendoki, Inc., of Newport Beach, Calif., known as a "Mini-Sorter" and shown in pending application Ser. No. 098,546, filed Nov. 29, 1979, by DuBois and Hamma, which also shifts the inlet ends of the trays past the sheet outlet from the copier. Such compact or mini sorters are ideally suited to sorting relatively small numbers of sets, say eight or ten sets. However, there nevertheless has remained a need for a compact sorter which has the simplicity and cost and space efficiencies of the just-mentioned prior sorters, but which have larger set capacity, say the capacity to sort twenty sets and receive a large quantity of unsorted sheets in a non-sort mode of operation.